Blessed Weather

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Hadleigh, Suffolk

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Weather extremes, mountains and skiing, foreign travel, British pubs. As a 10 year old I experienced the 1962/63 winter which was the start of my life-long interest in all things weather related. The family had just moved into a new-build house on the top of a hill in Wales when the blizzard struck overnight. I woke up with my bedroom window sill covered in snow. In the bathroom the sill was covered and the bath was full of several inches of snow. The water in the toilet was frozen. Oh the joy of badly fitting, draughty wooden windows... and only a coal fire in the living room to warm the entire house!
My first skiing trip to the Alps was in 1966. It was a school trip to Solden in Austria and we travelled by train across Europe. It was my first trip abroad and I hardly slept all way with the excitement. It led to a life-long passion for all things skiing and mountain and nowadays I try and have a few ski holidays a year if I can, spreading my visits across the Alps and try to visit less well known resorts as well as the usual suspects.
My other passion is rugby and coming from Dinas Powys in South Wales I'm naturally enough a Wales fan. I now live in Suffolk (job move) but regularly travel back in Wales where my parents still live.
My avatar is inspired by Brian Blessed - absolutely awesome in panto!!

Well here's another very interesting chart produced by Zach Labe. A great way of looking at how Arctic air temperatures have been steadily increasing during the satellite era (since 1979). There seems to have been a notable 'flip' as we entered the 2000's. Did the Arctic cross a tipping point or is some other aspect of global climate at play??
Ranks: 1=warmest (red), 40=coldest (blue)
https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/1029219662536396801

With the latest Colorado State University (CSU) forecast for the Atlantic season going for 12 named storms, 5 hurricanes and now only 1 major hurricane (cat 3 or stronger), Phil Klotzbach has provided some interesting analysis showing that in every "one major only" season since 1950, each of those hurricanes made continental USA landfall.
CSU ﻿update﻿: https://source.colostate.edu/csu-team-continues-to-predict-below-average-2018-atlantic-hurricane-season/
Klotzbach twe﻿et﻿: https://twitter.com/philklotzbach/status/1027933953993269249

An excellent (but worrying) chart from Zack Labe showing the decreasing volume of Arctic sea ice each year in the three decades since the advent of satellite monitoring. The trend is clear to see.
https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/1027420787324608512

As others have mentioned, lots of cloud around this evening, which ironically seems to be helping to hold the temp up. Still 24C at 21.00. But at least it provided a really nice sunset!
@Lauren You noticed too! Yes, beautiful colours!

A very interesting chart placing each summer into a cool/warm/hot/wet/dry quadrant. No surprise to see how close 1976 and 2018 are!
"Using the period May-June-July as a proxy for 'summer' (since we've still got 1 month of meteorological summer to go), it appears that 1976 is the closest match to 2018 - at least for temperature and rainfall. Highlights how extreme this summer has been relative to the norm."
With thanks to Dan Holley: https://twitter.com/danholley_/status/1024921132154204160

For the record, July in the East:
- 2nd warmest July on record [1910]
- Joint 2nd warmest MONTH on record [1910]
- 8th driest July on record [1910]
- THE sunniest July on record [1929]
- 2nd sunniest MONTH on record [1929]
- also looks like the 2nd driest June-July period on record (1976 was 3rd)
With thanks to Dan Holley: https://twitter.com/danholley_/status/1024729741859987456

For us mountain lovers this report from NOAA/Climate makes very depressing reading:
Mountain glaciers (1980–2017)
Based on the preliminary data, 2017, is likely to be the 38th year in a row of mass loss of mountain glaciers worldwide. According to the State of the Climate in 2017, “The cumulative mass balance loss from 1980 to 2016 is -19.9 meters, the equivalent of cutting a 22-meter-thick (72-foot-thick) slice off the top of the average glacier."
Graph of yearly loss 1980 - 2017:
Full report: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/state-climate-highlights/2017

"Look South, ENSO Forecasters"
Prof. Jason Furtado has just written a very interesting 'guest article' for the NOAA/Climate.gov website giving details of his research into the role that the South Pacific Oscillation (SPO) plays in helping determine the type and strength of developing EL Ninos. The article includes many informative charts.
Key extracts:
......let’s consider the evolution and development of an El Niño event. In June when an El Niño event is developing, warm water anomalies are already present in the central tropical Pacific. For development to continue, those warm central tropical Pacific SSTs have to build eastward and amplify during Northern Hemisphere summer and early fall. This eastward propagation of anomalies is driven by westerly winds and the formation of Kelvin Waves in the ocean in the eastern tropical Pacific, thus allowing waters to get warmer there. Since the SPO modulates the strength of the South Pacific trade winds in the eastern tropical Pacific, and it is most active during JJA, the phase and magnitude of the SPO can either help or hurt those Kelvin waves and the winds during the critical growth phase for ENSO.
If the SPO is in the positive phase (i.e., a weaker South Pacific subtropical high), then the southeasterly trade winds weaken, which reduces the cold-water upwelling in the eastern tropical Pacific and allows for easier eastward propagation of the warm waters from the central tropical Pacific to the eastern tropical Pacific.
However, if the SPO is in the negative phase (i.e., a stronger South Pacific subtropical high), then the southeasterly trade winds intensify, and the cold-water upwelling in the eastern tropical Pacific also increases. These two factors create an environment hostile for eastward expansion of the warm waters. Thus, the warm SST anomalies tend to remain in the central tropical Pacific.
.......we identified all El Niño events (regardless of flavor) from 1950-present and then examined what the magnitude and sign of the JJA SPO was for that year. Using only that information, we predicted what the flavor of that El Niño event would be the following winter. The results indicate that our simple prediction scheme correctly predicted the flavor of the event nearly 3 out of 4 times.
What does the SPO have to say about the expected flavor of this year’s El Niño event? The figure above illustrates that the SST warming thus far over the eastern tropical Pacific is spotty with evidence of subsurface warming present. Note that south of the Equator, however, there is an expanse of quite cold waters. More importantly, the SLP pattern in the South Pacific resembles a negative SPO signature. Indeed, for June 2018, the SPO index was about -1.3, and the SLP anomaly pattern in the South Pacific thus far for July also suggests a negative SPO value for the month. Without a substantial turnaround for the SPO in August, the JJA SPO for 2018 could turn out negative. Thus, based on what I argued above, if an El Niño event forms this upcoming winter, it will most likely be a weak/CP El Niño event. Luckily, I am not totally alone in this prediction. The latest forecast from the NMME models (below) hints at a weaker/CP El Niño event evolving this winter.
Full article: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/look-south-enso-forecasters

Great streamer going on here in Dinas Powys (just west of Cardiff) this pm, originating over the SW peninsular, particularly Exmoor as the SW'ly winds 'bend' around the high ground. The finger of rain seems to be happily following the M50 right up into the Midlands!
13.00 14.35
15.00

Excellent tweet from Ben Noll:
"The late-July SST anomaly pattern in the tropical Atlantic during 2018 is the complete opposite of 2005, which was the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record. The difference is striking."
July 2005 July 2018
https://twitter.com/BenNollWeather/status/1023188777198530560

Some rather large discrepancies in the number of UK lightning strikes over the last 24 hours. Can anybody shed some light on why that might be?
Netweather: 27,000
MeteoGroup: 50,000
Convective Weather: 215,000

Interesting Research Article published in the last few days:
A stratospheric pathway linking a colder Siberia to Barents-Kara Sea sea ice loss
Abstract:
Previous studies have extensively investigated the impact of Arctic sea ice anomalies on the mid-latitude circulation and associated surface climate in winter. However, there is an ongoing scientific debate regarding whether and how sea ice retreat results in the observed cold anomaly over the adjacent continents. We present a robust “cold Siberia” pattern in the winter following sea ice loss over the Barents-Kara seas in late autumn in an advanced atmospheric general circulation model, with a well-resolved stratosphere. Additional targeted experiments reveal that the stratospheric response to sea ice forcing is crucial in the development of cold conditions over Siberia, indicating the dominant role of the stratospheric pathway compared with the direct response within the troposphere. In particular, the downward influence of the stratospheric circulation anomaly significantly intensifies the ridge near the Ural Mountains and the trough over East Asia. The persistently intensified ridge and trough favor more frequent cold air outbreaks and colder winters over Siberia. This finding has important implications for improving seasonal climate prediction of mid-latitude cold events. The results also suggest that the model performance in representing the stratosphere-troposphere coupling could be an important source of the discrepancy between recent studies.
Link to article: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/7/eaat6025

Looking at the 'post storm' analysis of strikes from Convective Weather shows overall a very active night for the UK (215,000 strikes) and particularly for our Region. But reading back through the posts of the last few pages there are comments from folk in Worthing, East Sussex and East Norfolk that they largely missed out. I've zoomed in on the strikes chart and you can indeed see two distinct 'fingers' of hardly any activity - particularly the one from the South Coast up through Sussex and into the Dartford/Thurrock area. That's definitely bad luck!